432 pgs, 1998, Willmann-Bell Inc.
ISBN 978-0943396613

Jean Meeus, a widely acclaimed authority on celestial calculations, has compiled the most useful algorithms and computations for astronomers to support their observations. Instead of relying just on formulae developed before 1920, this book includes explicit equations based on machine motion-modeling methods perfected at JPL and the US Naval Observatory over the past decade, techniques that until now remained out of reach for civilians. This handy reference for understanding the applications of celestial mechanics includes a fully worked numerical example with each algorithm and makes the equations understandable for novices.

TABLE OF CONTENTS

1. Hints and Tips
2. About Accuracy
3. Interpolation
4. Curve Fitting
5. Iteration
6. Sorting Numbers
7. Julian Day
8. Date of Easter
9. Dynamical Time and Universal Time
10. The Earth's Globe
11. Sidereal Time at Greenwich
12. Transformation of Coordinates
13. The Parallactic Angle
14. Rising, Transit, and Setting
15. Atmospheric Refraction
16. Angular Separation
17. Planetary Conjunctions
18. Bodies in Straight Line
19. Smallest Circle Containing Three Celestial Bodies
20. Precession
21. Nutation and the Obliquity of the Ecliptic
22. Apparent Place of a Star
23. Reduction of Ecliptical Elements from one Equinox to another one
24. Solar Coordinates
25. Rectangular Coordinates of the Sun
26. Equinoxes and Solstices
27. Equation of Time
28. Ephemeris for Physical Observations of the Sun
29. Equation of Kepler
30. Elements of the Planetary Orbits
31. Positions of the Planets
32. Elliptic Motion
33. Parabolic Motion
34. Near-Parabolic Motion
35. The Calculation of Some Planetary Phenomena
36. Pluto
37. Planets in Perihelion and Aphelion
38. Passages Through the Nodes
39. Correction for Parallax
40. Illuminated Fraction of the Disk and Magnitude of a Planet
41. Ephemeris for Physical Observations of Mars
42. Ephemeris for Physical Observations of Jupiter
43. Positions of the Satellites of Jupiter
44. The Ring of Saturn
45. Position of the Moon
46. Illuminated Fraction of the Moon's Disk
47. Phases of the Moon
48. Perigee and Apogee of the Moon
49. Passages of the Moon through the Nodes
50. Maximum Declinations of the Moon
51. Ephemeris for Physical Observations of the Moon
52. Eclipses
53. Semidiameters of the Sun, Moon, and Planets
54. Stellar Magnitudes
55. Binary Stars
56. Calculation of a Planar Sundial